


and how the earth had trembled

by Goose_Boy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Buried Alive, Established Relationship, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Hurt Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goose_Boy/pseuds/Goose_Boy
Summary: Nicolo had been missing so long the horizon had swallowed the sun.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 259





	and how the earth had trembled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saintsurvivor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/gifts).



> Not what I'm supposed to be doing, but hey, thats fine.

The fire crackled, ate at the dry branches and coils of grasses that he had stuffed together for a bed of kindling. It flickered in the faint, hot breeze and blew thin wisps of smoke up into the cloudless blue sky. Warmth where the sun made such a thing otherwise miserable, but for all that he could gut a fish barehanded, his companion refused to eat them raw. The suggestion had been made in jest some months ago, but he could still remember the wrinkled curl of the other man's nose and the barely concealed disgust across pale features. 

Sunburn never lasted beyond a day, a rapid transition from pink to red to forgotten on freckled shoulders and cheeks by the time the sun rose again, but food poisoning would keep with them for miserable hours. 

Some mistakes only needed to be made once. 

A splash from the slow churning river beside where they had made their camp and a fish hit the ground near his knee. It flopped uselessly, mouth gaping and its slick body gleaming beneath the sun. Another landed just beside it and he swore faintly as it knocked against him, fat tail smacking against his thigh as the both of them wriggled and gasped on dry land. Empty relief as a shadow fell across him, a fat puddle of river water turning the dirt beneath him dark and damp and he swore anew. 

“You  _ shit _ .”

The shadow did nothing to cool him, not when Nicolo grinned down at him like that, incandescent and boyish in the evening sun. Wet past his elbows and above his knees where his trousers had been haphazardly rolled up, that tunic wasn’t his. A faded cream and maybe it was, too wide in the shoulders and the arms but it was impossible to tell these days who something really belonged to. Their bedrolls had steadily been pressed together until they could curl amongst one another in the cool nights without even the pretense of the desert chill between them. A want for warmth didn’t draw their bodies together in the dark, and it didn’t compel him to taste Nicolo’s mouth like he had. 

That bright, delighted grin, however- he knew what that tasted like and he wanted more.

All he had were those kisses, unpracticed but eager where Nicolo pressed against the length of his body. Gave himself to Yusuf’s hands where they held him and his mouth where it trailed paths across his throat and shoulders, and there was a trust so delicate there that he loathed to take advantage of it. Curious kisses from a mouth that only he had ever known, he didn’t ask for more than Nicolo gave him, would couldn’t imagine the thought of pushing for more when he had already been trusted with so much. Soft kisses and biting nails and stuttering, breathless sounds when his tongue and teeth slid across that pale throat, it was more than enough. 

There was nothing delicate about the man now, glistening forearms and a sharp grin, Nicolo looked smug and playful in the best of ways. He cut a powerful figure, slighter in stature than the breadth of Yusuf’s own form, but there was no chance for frailty in the lines of his body. Slender by comparison, lithe musculature that rippled beneath pale skin when he moved, it was a surreal juxtaposition to know the man that crouched in the dirt to whisper with children just as he knew the man who wielded a heavy broadsword with a dancers grace.

“I thought you wanted food.”

Spoken with a sniff, face upturned despite the sun, Nicolo looked down at him with sun-blushed cheeks and a starburst of freckles across his face. Like constellations that he wanted to trace and follow, Yusuf couldn’t help the way he smiled at the other even as he squinted. Even as he stared at the sun because it meant he could watch Nicolo and the way he basked in the light like he belonged to it, a vision most holy bathed in Allah’s blessing. 

A blessing indeed, and what sort of man would he be to squander a gift from his god?

“Ah, how foolish of me.” Quick fingers caught at the tender at the back of one knee, hand nearly engulfing the swell of a supple calf. Just the right pressure and his eyes were the churning tidal-froth green of the sea where they shone with laughter, went wide as his body buckled. Wet hands slapped at his shoulders as Nicolo swore, as he laughed, bright like the sun that had warmed his flesh as his weight dropped to Yusuf’s lap. “I didn’t realize I was eating sun-roasted Frank for my meal.”

Callused, skimming touches along his sides just to feel the way that Nicolo immediately began to squirm, listen to his stuttering, sputtering laughter as he tried to wriggle away. 

Pushing hands at his shoulders and chest that made them sway, Yusuf dropped them to the dirt away from the fire with a shift of his weight. Caught Nicolo by the waist and slung the two of them further still from the fire, hands to sensitive flesh just to watch the man laugh and writhe.

"Yusuf! Mercy!"

"Ah, but there is none of that here,  _ hayati." _

Nicolo squealed on a breath and Yusuf only relented when his flush traveled far beneath the neck of his tunic. Left the other man panting in the dirt with a kiss pressed to that flushed, gaping mouth and tasted the bliss on his tongue.

"I suppose I shall eat the fish instead. Easier to cook."

_ "Grazie." _

Nicolo stayed sprawled in the dirt even when Yusuf returned to the fish, heaving chest and sun bright skin. Gave the length of his flesh for Yusuf to stare at before finding his blade to gut their catch. Distraction from the way he wanted to put his mouth to that pounding pulse, taste the sweat and river water on pale skin until Nicolo fell apart beneath his hands. Would he be breathless and quiet, or would his passion be loud, cries muffled behind embarrassed fingers while Yusuf taught him the wonder he had been forced to deny himself?

The blade slipped easily across the flat of a scaled belly, and he stuffed his fingers inside to pull out the hot organs within. 

Listened to his companion slowly rise, felt a fleeting touch to his shoulders as Nicolo came and went, out from behind him to stand and stretch. Bare toes curled in the dirt, a thin layer of mud across his skin where the man had just gotten clean. 

He would have called it wasteful if Yusuf didn’t look forward to the sight of the other man in the water. 

Hands raised high above his head on a long stretch, body elongated to an elegant arch as he rocked forward on his feet. Silent poetry in every motion, caught by the warmth of the sun and left in the delicate haze of simply existing. He stared off into the horizon with sharp eyes and a soft mouth where something had caught his attention. Another heat mirage in the distance, the way the sun visibly danced above the ground, it would hardly be the first time such a thing pressed his fair-haired companion to distraction. 

“ _ Hayati _ , you’ll grow roots if you stare for too long.”

Gentle words, but Nicolo gave him no heed, stared into the flickering vista beyond the ridge at something that Yusuf couldn’t see. His expression turned cool, brow flat above his deep-set eyes, and there was a light there that he hadn’t seen in some time. Years, it had been years since he had seen such a look on that pale face, and Yusuf paused with his hand pressed into the slit fish belly. 

“Nicolo?”

Fear, ice tempered and all encompassing, it swallowed every other emotion that could have lived in those pale eyes. He only had a moment to witness before he heard it, hoof beats upon the hot dirt and raised voices. Quick to climb to his feet and he could see them then, thirteen men with gleaming swords and bloodstained clothes. Their coloration matched his own, dark hair and sun deep skin brown skin but there was a wild savagery to them that he recognized.

He recognized the cackling call that rippled through them as they noticed him. Noticed Nicolo, and felt his own spill of fear as an arrow notched and flew.

"No!"

One strong shoulder jerked back with an audible, wet thud as the arrow planted itself deep in Nicolo's chest. A low sound of pain from behind him as he took his own sword from beside the fire, bright blood blooming across the others tunic from the wound. Another arrow flew, caught his own bicep even as a fresh volley of them fell from the sky. Wild dog laughter and Nicolo's body jerked with impact beside him, five arrows buried into his flesh for all that he stood still.

His own blade was no defense for arrows or the way they were grossly outnumbered. No match for the panic bright, stricken look on Nicolo's face as the man turned to him. Such things should never exist together, spooling resignation and the point of certainty that existed just beyond fear. The only warning he had, the space between his ribs no match against the sharp of Nicolo's dagger where it sank into his heart. 

There were words on that mouth, but he wouldn't hear them past the screaming between his ears.

For a moment they matched, blood painting their mouths as he twisted the knife. Sent a fiery flare of pain through his chest, and Yusuf fell where Nicolo shoved, another bubble of crimson bursting across his tongue. His back hit the dirt just beside their fire and Nicolo was backlit by the sun, brilliant and golden and bloodied. Grey licked at the edges of hisnvision as the other man dodged a the swing of a blade only to be caught by another in his side, wet cry turned thin like he couldn't breathe.

Yusuf watched his almost-lover start to fall only to be caught by a fist in the back of his ruined tunic.

"N'c- _ hn!" _

Rage and fear tasted the same when they were ferried by blood, and Yusuf saw the world through broken blinks as Nicolo was yanked away by one of the raiders.

It was nearly dark when he blinked again, the rotten smell of fish mixed with the thick of blood. The fire had died, cool ash where the flames had crackled the last he had seen. Their things were gone, packs missing and bedrolls lost to the slow churning river, not even his blade remained. 

It was with a groan that Yusuf pulled himself to his feet, took the dagger from the ground where it had pressed out from his flesh while he came back to life. He pulled the arrow free himself, tore it from his bicep with a grunt and a curse as blood ran from the wound. Only a moment as it it closed, flesh seaming itself back together before his eyes. Fist flexing and he turned, caught the glint of sunlight across metal that made his breath catch.

Nicolo's broadsword, laid between two rocks where it had been left behind.

The sight of a  _ sword _ shouldn't have caused him such pain, an icy fist tight about his throat while his eyes began to burn.

_ I'm sorry, vita mio, I'm so sorry. _

Eyes shutting tight as he fought to breathe, he knew then the shapes that Nicolo's mouth had made. He knew what that look now meant, the mercy that the other man had tried to give him by making his death quick, intimate. It was certainly more than Nicolo would have been given, more gentle by far then those men would have been. Allah give him strength, but Nicolo had known that, had thrown himself to the horrors that may in a desperate gamble to keep Yusuf safe.

_ "Damn you." _

Damn Nicolo and his kind heart, damn him and his selflessness, damn him for his willingness to set his own safety aside for the sake of another.

Between the hoofprints and the blood in the dirt, he knew which direction he needed to go. They had traveled North, scuffs across the ground like Nicolo had been dragged behind a horse, feet kicking out as if he had tried to catch himself on something, anything. The signs of struggle stopped after some twenty minutes of walking, furrows instead where he had simply been pulled along limply. He had passed out, or at least momentarily passed on, and Yusuf followed the tracks they had left with Nicolo’s broadsword strapped to his waist. 

He walked until there was no blood, followed the hoof prints and drag marks that remained as the world grew darker. The pale light of the moon overtook the vast sky, filled with stars that flickered to life the longer he went. Until he couldn’t makeout the difference between where their horses had trampled and where they had dragged Nicolo behind them, but he didn’t need to to see details to know where he went. They had come this way, they had taken something vitally important to his person, and they had left him behind under the assumption that the dead would stay dead. 

Had it been any other man, that assumption would have held true, but Yusuf had too much at stake to let death keep him. 

Hours must have passed, the air gone cold and the ground colder still. The stars guided him, thin light that showed him enough for where he needed to go, but there could be no stopping. The chill in his bones wasn’t enough for him to slow down, the fear that had started in his wounded heart spread further until it tangled through his ribs. It was his companion where Nicolo wasn’t, it would be enough for now where he himself hadn’t been. Nicolo was gone because he hadn’t paid attention, because  _ he _ had been slow to draw. The silence was like staring into the dark, bottomless ocean after it swallowed the sun but the moon failed to rise, daunting and demanding. 

There was the faintest glow from coals in the dirt, remnants of a fire that had burned and been abandoned to die. 

No raiders to be seen, no horses to be found. The soft glowing shell of an unstamped fire, the evidence of where there had been another scuffle from a muddy spill of blood to a forgotten dagger. No men, no Nicolo, their tracks carried East then with a wide stride. A patch of turned earth instead, darker in color against the rest of the surrounding area. 

There was nothing but the quiet desert all around him, but he  _ knew _ , and Yusud fell to his knees before that churned earth. 

“No, no, no, you can’t do this to me.”

Desperation pulled his hands through the loose dirt, fingers quickly splitting at the pads. He pulled palmfuls of it, heart thundering in his chest so hard it was all he could hear, red blooded dread slick on his tongue. The ground he pulled turned muddy with his own blood as he dug, burning palms and a pounding so vicious from within his chest that he felt ready to burst. The coldest of fires lived in his vein, ate at him as he struggled not to sob for every breath. 

His hands had healed twice over before he found the soft give of cloth. 

Yusuf did sob then, hands diving harder through the dirt as he found the arm that that sleeve covered, the shoulder and the chest. There were six arrows still punched into his torso, but Nicolo’s throat and head came next as the dirt was cleared. There were tears spilling like rivers down his face as he pleaded with a man that didn’t breathe. For his lips were bloodless and tinged a faded stone blue, the shadows beneath his eyes smudged like bruises.

He looked so pale, and he came free from his earthen coffin only when Yusuf hooked their arms together and levered him out entirely. 

They fell back to the ground in a heap, unsteady where he couldn’t keep himself standing, let alone Nicolo’s dead weight.  _ Dead weight _ , and the notion punched another breaking sob from him as Yusuf’s hands shook. Fluttered and hesitated, he didn’t know where to touch or where to start, but he settled on the arrows first. Pressed a hand to Nicolo’s cold chest and wrenched every bolt free. They resisted like they didn't want to leave, but he couldn't let them stay, couldn't let Nicolo's body try to heal around them anymore than it already had.

It was with a slick, sucking sound that he got them loose, each puncture wound letting forth a sluggish spill of blood. 

Nicolo was cold to the touch, head fallen limp across his shoulder without the strength to hold it up. He lay like a broken doll, discarded in the street with his limbs askew and his skin stained from the earth. It had caked around his eyes, a layer of grime tangled in his lashes that Yusuf thumbed away with a gentle, trembling touch. As if he had tried to open his eyes every time he had gasped back to life, as if he had breathed and suffered and died beneath the earth over and over in the hours it had taken Yusuf to find his grave.

Moments passed with tears rolling down his own cheeks, but Nicolo didn't stir.

There was no rattle to his chest, there was no desperate gasping that pulled his spine to a bow. No fluttering lids or smacking, seeking hands, there was only the lifeless ground chilled soft of his flesh and the way his body lay heavy. Empty, like that raging quiet fire had finally been snuffed out. 

"You have to wake up, Nicolo. You have t-you can't do this to me, you _ can't!" _

His terror made him shake, a harsh jerking that jostled the body against his chest. Nicolo's head rolled, closed eyed and open mouthed where all of his sarcastic wit and endless generosity had finally been scooped out. A hollow shell in place of the man he had come to love with such intensity, Yusuf curled tighter around his pale body in the dark. Couldn't have ceased his crying even if he had wanted to, grief like he hadn't been forced to confront in years biting through him as it sought to swallow him whole. As wet clumped dirt fell onto his chest.

As sodden, compacted soil fell from Nicolo's open mouth to his chest.

He had swallowed it, had  _ breathed _ it, but he couldn't breathe now from the amount that had clogged in his throat. How much had Nicolo been forced to consume in a terror induced want to breathe? How many times had he woken in the unforgiving ground to scream, to be smothered, only to die again? Enough that it made it impossible now for him to breathe, for his heart to start beating once more.

Carefully, Yusuf pressed two fingers between his lips, plush and blued and smeared with dirt. His tongue felt dry, his mouth cool, and Yusuf whispered quiet, pleading prayers as he felt to the back of his mouth. Found the packed dirt there and more further in his throat, pried it loose with a touch as gentle as he could manage. Until his fingers grew damp, until saliva began to turn what remained of the dirt into a thin sludge that was easier still to bring loose. 

Nicolo surged to life with a wretched gurgle around his fingers as he choked. He turned his head aside quickly, kept the man upright as he shook violently, gasping and gagging as he vomited the soil that remained in his throat. A mess made of the both of them, but Yusuf clutched him as tight as he dared because it didn't matter. Nothing mattered more than Nicolo breathing and turning warm to his touch, Nicolo safe and alive beneath his hands.

"I'm here,  _ hayati,  _ I'm here. You're safe now."

_ "Y'suf!" _

His name should never sound like that, battered and abused and pleading from the terror that still gripped him. He swore silently, mouth pressed to Nicolo's dirtied temple as he clutched him closer.

"I'm here, I'm right here."


End file.
